


Jurat

by cobaltcowboy



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5, Far Cry: New Dawn
Genre: Ask Us About Our Revised Far Cry Lore, Gen, M/M, Meet-Cute, Snippets, Tragic Romance, and so on - Freeform, ao3 wont work with me so we improvisin, ima need yall to ignore the formatting, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobaltcowboy/pseuds/cobaltcowboy
Summary: We are not our own judge, jury, nor executioner. Life does that for us, rarely kindly.Or: what happens when two men in love meet the end of the world.
Relationships: Mickey/Etienne, The Judge/The Deputy, thems ocs. fuck the lore
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Jurat

Their first meeting was informal and fleeting. The birds had chirped in the trees overhead and the pine needles rustled with each breath of the mountain wind. At that point, Etienne had never been a camp counselor, had never really talked to little kids and had certainly never thought about spending a week in a cabin with four of them.

The promise of nature had lured him to it, though, and after a few minutes spent with the man in charge’s rowdy progeny, Etienne had decided he, young and headstrong, would give camp counseling a go. He’d heard Hope County was beautiful, anyway, that even toeing the outskirts such as they were would be more than satisfactory.

There had been a lecture the day before they were due to start. Fire safety, how to flee a bear, what to do when you were caught in a storm, that sort of thing. Basic stuff, really. Etienne’s father had taught him most of it when he was a kid.

The guy next to him had leaned over. At a glance, he was a decent-looking man around Etienne’s age, with pretty sky-colored eyes and feathery blond hair. On further inspection, there was something a bit off about his face. Two things, actually: one, and Etienne could not for the life of him pin which feature it was, but one of them was skewed in a manner that indicated a mild fight; and two, he was missing half a dark brow. Scalded off, if the redness of the skin below was any indication.

“I’ll bet none a these clowns know what to do once you’ve slipped off the side a the mountain,” the guy whispered a little too loudly.

“What’s that?” Etienne asked, shaggy head cocked.

“Die,” the guy responded, and he snickered under their lecturers glare.

Etienne saw him twice after that. Once the next day, guiding his bundle of kids like they were a herd of baby cows. And once on the last night, sitting across from Etienne at the big fire. He threw marshmallows into the blazing wood whenever the storyteller looked away, and sat innocent when a wave of giggling turned her right back.

His eyes were like stars in the firelight.

###### 

“Name’s Mickey, I’m from Hope County but I’m not into all that weird-ass cult stuff they’ve got goin’ on about now.”

His hair wasn’t as feathery or outdated as Etienne remembered. It had been replaced by an issued buzz, light and peachy where Etienne’s own was a shadow upon his head.

And he had two whole eyebrows now.

“Etienne Laurence,” said Etienne, taking Mickey’s calloused hand and returning the shake as firmly as he dared. It wasn’t firm enough, Mickey’s grip was no weaker than a wolf’s bite.

“Eighteen,” Mickey repeated with a blunt nod.

Etienne stifled a grin.

“Yup. That’s about right, Mickey. Nice to meet you.”

###### 

The boat rocked whenever he moved to grab another beer, and the pinpricks of thousands of stars reflected in the black water rippled. Etienne could not help but to peer at it every time he sat up. It was like looking into ink, he thought, but it did not fill him with the kind of dread his father had always proclaimed.

His father had been an existential man. Etienne understood half of it.

“Catch any?” He asked, handing Mickey a can. His sunburnt hand shot out in a flash, and there was a crack as the knife tore clean through the tin. Mickey pocketed the knife and took the can.

“Nah. Not yet, but I’m gonna. Even if it means divin’ into that water myself and catchin’ ‘em with my damn teeth.”

Etienne pondered that for a moment.

“Bad water, huh?”

“It ain’t good, Ehteon. I was hopin’ I’d be able to catch enough for us, too.”

“You got enough for the Seths and their boys, right? That’s what counts. Avoid trouble and they’ll be feasting like kings,” Etienne pointed out. He didn’t know the family particularly well. The mother’s brother had been on a basketball team with Mickey, once. Or was it baseball?

And he knew that the boys were young and Hope County was a bit strange recently, in such a manner that Etienne had heard it come up in conversation at the station on numerous occasions, a conversation that persisted in the streets. It was hearing those stories on the streets that alarmed him.

“I know, I know. I’d hoped a bit that you and I could have somethin’ fresh for breakfast, though, yaknow? Man. I can imagine how much better a trout’d taste in the mornin’ when it’s roasted over a fire and shared with someone purdy,” Mickey sighed.

The corner of Etienne’s mouth twitched into a small smile. Mickey would not see it from his post on the water, and he certainly wouldn’t see Etienne’s hand fall to a small, squarish lump in his jacket pocket. He slipped a thumb into it, stroked the coat of navy velvet to assure himself that it was still there, and dropped his hand back to his side.

“There are things to look forward to in the morning besides breakfast,” he said smoothly. “I think there’ll be plenty of time to try for that goal in the future, anyway, don’t you think?”  
Mickey glanced over his shoulder.

“You know what? Yeah. But don’t sell me short, man, I might catch somethin’ still before I fall dead asleep outta this boat. I wanna taste cooked trout.”

“You wi- cooked trout? Have you eaten _raw_ trout?”

###### 

He hadn’t wanted to go to Hope County. If it hadn’t been for some hoity-toity government mascot called Burke, he wouldn’t be piloting this ‘copter over bad news in the first place. More importantly, if Mickey hadn’t been enlisted into all of this, Etienne wouldn’t have come. Nancy would have piloted and Mickey’s seat would’ve been left for Joseph Seed.

But Burke didn’t help, and whenever he cast a disapproving glance at Mickey, Etienne grit his teeth against a swear. His father had taught him some French way back then, and Etienne had picked up the curses on his own. Burke didn’t have to know.

Then he felt his mother’s presence, soft and calm over his hands, easing the helicopter ever closer to their destination. And he thought about Mickey, who was actually there, and he wondered if those pills had done anything to ease his anxiety over flying.

Judging by his silence, things were going okay back there.

The compound loomed just below them, growing closer and closer with each second. Pratt turned in the seat to Etienne’s right. He heard Whitehorse briefly over the comms, then faintly through the padding of his earphones.

The helicopter whirred into dormancy, and seatbelts clicked open with the finality of a loaded gun. The gravel crunched beneath Etienne’s feet, and he eased past Burke to rest his hand on Mickey’s shoulder.

“I’m here,” he said, not quite believing his own confidence.

“Me too,” Mickey answered. “Come on, we got this. Let’s see what Seed’s doin’.”

###### 

He saw the smoke before he saw the faces. Whatever this house had once been – modest, wealthy, fine or sloppy – was now nothing more than char and ash. Etienne stood, shocked into a hard silence.

“The boys,” Mickey whispered. “They’re gonna need us.”

Etienne nodded, and Mickey padded into the brush. He heard the rustle of bushes. He heard sobbing, and the ragged edge of a pained promise for safety, for shelter.

With every muscle in his aching body, Etienne turned from the house and joined Mickey between the trees, lowering himself to a crouch and offering a fake smile to the ash-smeared children before him.

“Hey, guys,” he said. “We’re gonna protect you now, okay? You won’t be seeing another cultist as long as I’m alive. I won’t let it happen.”

Two pairs of brown eyes met his, and Etienne felt his heart twist.

“We’ve got you now. It’ll be okay,” Mickey said, and the older boy scrubbed his tears from his face.

###### 

“I can go in there with you,” Etienne insisted. “Mickey, I swear to God I’ll feel better if I go in there with you. Joseph’s got an army. The boys are with the Rye family, if you and I stick together, we-“

“No,” Mickey said with surprising softness. “I ain’t gonna do that. I’ll be back, Etienne, I promise. It’ll be just like every outpost we’ve taken. The boys need you, and your leg ain’t better yet. What happens if we gotta run?”

Etienne shifted, a sneaking pain winding around his leg like a snake. It had been a clean shot, but it hadn’t healed nearly as well as he’d have liked it to. This war of the Seeds’ helped it none.  
“I know,” he admitted, face falling. “I know. Let me drive you there, at least. I promise I’ll leave the moment you’re inside. Just… I want to see you off.”

Mickey scooted closer, stars reflected in the black of his pupils. He took Etienne’s hand in his own, the warm steel circling Mickey’s ring finger solid against Etienne’s skin.

“I’ll come back,” Mickey insisted. “And we’ll tear down all a John Seed’s stupid decorations and we’ll make that cabin our fuckin’ own.”

“Good,” Etienne joked weakly. “I’m getting tired of looking at that fucking cross.”

###### 

He was dumping the cult’s insignia into a dark corner in the cellar when the world rocked. Buck swung around at his side, dropping his box of tattoo needles and old tapes an inch to the left of his foot. A scream came from the top of the stairs, and Etienne limped up them as swiftly as he could.

“There’s a bomb! They dropped a bomb on us!” AJ cried, pointing out the window. Etienne leaned, heart thudding in his chest.

 _Mickey,_ he thought.

“AJ! Shove as many boxes of canned foods down the stairs as you can. Buck, you find whatever liquids you can. When I come back down the stairs, you run for that cellar and you don’t go anywhere near the stairs, do you understand me?”

It was a tone he rarely took with them, stern and demanding and sharp as a knife. The boys nodded, and he heard the clatter of boxes and the slam of doors before he’d made it halfway to the bedroom.

“Keys, medicine, blankets, pillows,” he muttered, shoving each into trash bags he had intended for shattered glass and broken boards. “Bow, pistol, shot- shotgun.”

His voice faltered on the word. Mickey’s gun – Faith’s, a few weeks ago – glinted on the dresser, the stoic guardian of a row of shining rings that Mickey had worn before declaring them gifts to the boys. Their sons.

Etienne shoved them into the second bag, and he ran for the stairs.

###### 

Mickey did not come back. Etienne spent those first few days waiting, soothing the boys and sorting through what boxes they had in the cellar. Buck, scruffy in the same way a puppy was, had started digging a hole in the corner to bury all of John Seed’s old shit. He did it with his bare hands, seemingly enjoying the cool dirt between his fingers.

AJ flipped boredly through a ratty bible, kicking one of the unwanted boxes in Buck’s direction whenever he beckoned. And Etienne did what he could. Waited, soothed, sorted. The last two were temporary, finished when the boys’ stress alleviated and when he’d lined one of the walls with their rations.

The first never stopped.

As their supplies dwindled, Etienne dared to wander upstairs. There had been masks in the basement, no doubt tailored for the men who’d lingered around bliss without wanting to breathe it, and he took full advantage of them.

The radiation rolled back. Etienne salvaged the house. The sun peeked from beneath the clouds more and more often, and with it came the delicate growth of a new world. Flower blossoms, grass, scraggly leaves on trees that had been so nearly torn apart. The birds and the deer reemerged. They did not look quite right, and they looked less and less like he remembered the further into its rebirth the earth progressed.

Buck and AJ hunted with Etienne for a while. Etienne hauled the first deer they caught over his shoulder and fell to one knee the moment he stood upright. Pain ensnared his leg, bright and burning like the bliss bullet that had cursed him with it in the first place.

Buck carried the deer from there, and he carried just about every one after that.

AJ built traps and weapons and armor that he couldn’t quite rationalize beyond the scope of just wanting to have them. Nobody ever visited the ranch. It was just the three of them, spring and summer and autumn and winter, again and again and again.

When the boys were fifteen, Etienne found the shirt Mickey had arrived to Hope County in so long ago and he twisted it into a faded green rope and wore it around his bicep. A year later, Buck and AJ made him a walking stick, and he moved the shirt there.

They were seventeen when they professed the desire to leave, and just on time, too. Hope County had begun to stir again, leaving Etienne to doubt that he could stay and speak to dozens of resurfaced faces after so long away.

“We want to explore,” AJ had said, and Etienne had ignored the hunger in his voice, the muted anger in Buck’s eyes. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with it, wasn’t quite sure if it was a vice or a virtue in a world forged by chaos.

“We’ve heard about some places down South that sound pretty cool, and we wanted to check ‘em out. We’ll write, though, promise.”

###### 

He had found a cabin on the outskirts of Hope County to make his home in. A raggedy pup had crawled from under the porch the moment Etienne arrived, snarling and snapping as if it were much bigger than its six months. As if it could do anything, he thought. Peaches and Cheeseburger had been far more intimidating.

Etienne set out a deer leg for the pup every day for two weeks – no small feat, given the nigh impossibility of dragging the damned corpses back – and the pup warmed.

“I’m going to call you Flea,” he said, and the pup scratched her fuzzy ears. He would bathe her when he got the chance.

###### 

“I heard you had made home around here!” A familiar voice said, gleeful to the point where Etienne suspected something hid behind it. He looked up from his journal and locked eyes with Nick Rye.

It was the same Nick. Weathered, yes, and greyed by the seasons, but he dressed the same and spoke the same and smiled the same, and looking at him reminded Etienne of Mickey. It had been easy to prank Nick and Mickey. They were trusting, kind, and a bit more gullible than either of them would admit.

“Long time,” Etienne said, voice hoarse from lack of use. Flea perked an ear and curled a lip. Etienne hushed her gently, and that lip fell back into place. “I’d say I missed you, but I worry you’d accuse me of being sentimental.”

Nick laughed like he’d jammed his finger.

“What’s wrong, Nick?”

He straightened as if he’d been caught with his pants down, hazel eyes wide with all the fear of a schoolchild. Etienne gestured at the space on the step beside him, and Nick placed himself cautiously at his side.

“Joseph Seed’s back,” he said.

Etienne’s journal hit the ground with a startled thwack.

“And, um… he’s starting somethin’ new. Nothing good, I don’t think, is it ever good with them bastards? But, uh, he has a sidekick, and it’s none of his siblings, don’t worry, but I… it’s…”

“What did he do to Mickey?”

Nick looked down at his hands.

“I don’t think you want to know.”

###### 

He walked at AJ’s back, footsteps silent over the damp earth. The group stood fifty feet away yet, but even from his seat on the porch – Flea at his side – he knew the face that sheet of bone disguised.

It did not come with words, certainly not with chatter. This unnerved Etienne.

“Back in Hope County,” he said, forcing a smile. Buck was broad now, built like a bull and missing an arm; Etienne's heart turned at that, seeing it in person was harder than reading it in a letter. AJ was lean, a runner with grease-blackened hands and a crooked smile that would have frightened Etienne if he’d seen it on anyone other than his son.

“Yeah, who would’ve thought, right?” said Buck with a boisterous laugh. Wind ruffled his auburn hair.

“Who’s your friend?” He asked, gesturing at the shadowy figure in their wake. Mickey, he thought to himself. But they would not know. They should not know. Not now, maybe not ever. Some things were better left to ash.

“This is the Judge,” AJ answered.

“He’s neat. Man, this dude ate a snake the other day. Venom and everything.”

Etienne’s shoulders loosened.

Some things didn’t change. Impulsivity seemed to be one of them.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mister Judge.”

He bowed his head, and the Judge returned the gesture. It was stiff, not at all the loose comfort he remembered. Etienne glanced at his walking stick; the fabric of that old shirt fluttered, buttons tapping against the porch as if beckoning their owner home. He looked back at the Judge, at Mickey.

His eyes were like stars beneath his mask, and Etienne smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> ask me about my fucking revised far cry lore im not kidding. im here https://curiouscat.me/mattholomew ask me !
> 
> (mickey & buck are cole's characters. i can't take credit for them i simply write them !)


End file.
